


Recluse

by lusteralliance (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: EDIT: FIXED AN AWFUL MISTAKE DJDNDN, Gen, I Love You, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, also i made double-sect up before anyone tries googling it, bernie this is for you, i LOVE writing in bernadetta's voice, i decided to write a solo piece for bernadetta.., im nervous bc i feel a drop, justice for bernadetta 2k19, oh well, some gruesome stuff.., this was an experiment on character voice hehe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 09:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20338216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: Who said Bernadetta liked the ropes or the splinters? Certainly not herself.[solo piece for bernie!]





	Recluse

That's what Count von Varley called her.

Well, it wasn't really Bernadetta's fault. She hated the ropes just as much as Grandpa did, and she didn't like the chair, that hastily carved oak wood one that left splinters on the backs of her legs for weeks, even after the physicians pulled them out.

And who was to say she liked the gag? She didn't like it at all. Sure, she couldn't talk or really breathe, but worse, if she sneezed or coughed, she had to smell phlegm for hours, and phlegm smelled weird. Actually, Bernadetta despised it (but language like that didn't attract rich suitors, so she never really said it).

And she _tried_ to go outside, she really did. When she was little, Bernadetta would ask, "Papa, can I go outside?" and he would respond, "Of course not!" but that was like, his answer every time, so Bernadetta didn't really know why she bothered. And then when she got older, he said, "Daughter, can you go outside?" and she would respond, "Of course not!" and obviously he'd beat her, but she got her point across, so who was the _real_ winner?

So when Grandpa called her a "recluse," Bernadetta believed his claim had no merit whatsoever. Especially now, when she made visits to the monastery's greenhouse when the halls were empty. She went places! By herself! And besides, Petra told her that recluses were also a type of big spider that ate other bugs and had sand holes that they lived in, so clearly Bernadetta wasn't one of those.

The greenhouse's carnivorous plants were really the only good part of the facility. Yeah, it felt hot and sticky and actually pretty awful and other students looked at her when she was sweaty, but she got to talk to people and _still_ be alone!

So the flytraps weren't really people. Okay, thank you, Ferdinand, for the scientific breakthrough, now gallop off to your one-upping and whatnot and turn to ashes.

But they closed their mouths around food and smiled sometimes, if they were deformed, and they didn't judge when Bernadetta slipped up in her rambling because they had _no eyes!_

The pitcher plants? Even neater. They didn't move at all! They had their mouths wide open and when one of the students dropped a fly after plucking its wings into one of their mouths, it just stayed there while the fly struggled and flailed in a puddle of acid and it wasn't so bad since they didn't really have blood, so Bernadetta could watch the whole show from impact to the furiously pumping tiny fly organs floating in flakes of soggy exoskeleton.

If the flies screamed, then they would be just like Bernadetta when her father dragged her around the house by her ankle, shrieking and thrashing and breaking vases and bones. Minus the disintegrating. That was more of an internal thing.

The flytraps were funny because they looked like their mouths were stitched closed when they were eating. Bernadetta knew a lot about stitching. Actually, the pattern their tendrils made resembled more of a double-sect sort of deal, with two interlacing strings. Her father made her learn that so she could repair the noblemen's robes and get closer to them that way. She knew how to do an excellent double-sect now, but she didn't get married. So it didn't matter to him, anyway.

"Any proposals, Daughter?" he said once. Bernadetta said back, "No, Father," and she got the lecture and the beating and yadda yadda but this time, it was different. Because she _had_ gotten a proposal! A nice young man who had torn his sleeve on a loose nail complimented her embroidery, then asked her to tea. Bernadetta refused (which she kind of felt bad about because the young man looked pretty sad) and went home and lied. She'd rather get her hair pulled and the broom making dust clouds against her rear than leave the house and have tea with a stranger, because, well, she knew how to deal with a whooping. A date? Unfathomable.

There were some nice boys at the Officers' Academy. Caspar was loud but he meant well. Linhardt slept too much. Ferdinand was tolerable when he was sad. Hubert kind of freaked her out.

Bernadetta honestly liked the company of the girls a lot better. Edelgard was terrifying, but in a protector way. Dorothea was quite cheerful and always supportive. And Petra was patient and told stories about Brigid when Bernadetta asked, which was often.

Petra listened the best, too. One time, she invited Bernadetta to tea and Bernadetta told her her life story because first impressions be darned, it was all or nothing (her father said no cursing so she did her best not to).

Petra said, "If I am understanding, you are trapped when you were young," and Bernadetta nearly danced a jig because that was _exactly_ what it was! She just didn't know! Petra also said, "Your Grandpapa also called you 'recluse,' am correct? I believe you are the fly. Stuck in your Papa's web," and Bernadetta nearly proposed marriage. Who knew all it took to crack the shackles around her ankles was a person who had no idea what saltines were!

Dorothea had joked that they should all dress up as animals for the harvest festival, so Bernadetta dressed up as a brown recluse. The others asked why, and her life story received six new heads to echo in, since Petra and the professor already knew about it. They all came in and hugged her, which was awful since their costumes were a bit heavy.

"We love you, Bernie, even if your dad doesn't," said Caspar, and Linhardt slapped him. "We're here for you, Bernadetta, even if others in your family were absent!" said Edelgard, which was nice of her but Hubert glared uneasily. "I'll always will befriend you, Bernadetta," said Petra, and Bernadetta was crying into the professor's cape as everyone else spoke which wouldn't have been very good if she was a real recluse.

"If you were truly a spider," said Hubert, "then you would have enough arms to hug all of us at once." Perhaps a recluse _did_ have an advantage, in that sense.

"Regardless of who you were told to be, and who you are, and who you will become, we will always stand by your side," said the professor. "You are more than the mold your father put you in, Bernadetta. You are much more than a recluse, and much more than simply something to marry."

Just then, she was a flytrap, because she was smiling so hard she felt deformed. Her father didn't train her to smile. She wasn't used to it, but in the arms of her friends (real friends! She made them herself), Bernadetta'd be darned if she didn't start learning how.


End file.
